Rebecca Marshall

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Rebecca Marshall ( bl. 1663 - 1677 ) was a noted English actor at the time of the Stuart Restoration . She was the younger sister of actress Anne Marshall .

Rebecca Marshall began her acting career with the theater company King’s Company under Thomas Killigrew , three years after it was founded in 1660. She stayed there for the entire course of her acting career; only in the last year, 1677, did she move to the competing troupe of the Duke's Company for one season . She starred at least once with her sister Anne in John Dryden's The Maiden Queen in 1664; Anne played Candiope and Rebecca played the Queen. When her older sister temporarily retired from the stage in 1668, many of her roles fell to Rebecca. So that of Aurelia in Dryden's An Evening's Love and that of Nourmahal in Aureng-zebe ; it is possible that she also took on Evadne in The Maid's Tragedy from Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher .

Other roles of Rebecca Marshall:

This includes many other spoken prologues and epilogues to various pieces. In 1672 she was involved in two, exclusively female-cast plays by Killigrew: The Parson's Wedding (written by himself in the early 1640s) and Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster .

Marshall formed a "remarkable acting combination" with her colleague Elizabeth Boutell . This was first constituted in August 1670 on Dury Lane in the drama "The Roman Empress", the only play by William Joyners (1622-1706). The success and the desire for more such "Women in Conflict" pieces led to similar works in which Marshall played the dark antagonist against the virtuous heroine Boutell. This constellation was shown in The Conquest of Granada and The Tragedy of Nero by Lee in 1674; as in 1677 in John Crownes The Destruction of Jerusalem and Lee's The Rival Queens . This successful scheme did not have to wait long for imitators. In the same decade, the competing theater company Duke's Company competed with its own couple: Mary Saunderson ( Thomas Betterton's wife ) and Mary Lee (later Mary Slingsby ). In the 1680s and 1690s it was the duo Elizabeth Barry and Anne Bracegirdle . During her season with Duke's Company, she played a comedic version of this constellation against Elizabeth Barry in Thomas d'Urfey's play A Fond Husband, or the Plotting Sisters .

Samuel Pepys mentioned the two Marshall sisters repeatedly in his famous diary; he always called the younger one "Beck Marshall". Rebecca was often praised for her beauty, but this was also a burden to her: she twice asked King Charles II to get protection from intrusive men in her audience. She also had a habit of getting into constant arguments with Nell Gwyn .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Elizabeth Howe: The First English Actresses: Women and Drama 1660–1700 , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1992
  2. ^ John Harold Wilson: 'The Marshall Sisters and Anne Quin' Notes and Queries , New Series, Volume 4 (1957), pages 104-106
  3. ^ John Harold Wilson: All the King's Ladies: Actresses of the Restoration , University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1958; Pages 170-171.
  4. ↑ Elizabeth Howe: The First English Actresses: Women and Drama, 1660-1700 , Cambridge University Press 1992, pp. 152-153.
  5. ↑ Kirsten Pullen: Actresses and Whores: On Stage and in Society , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2005, ISBN 978-0-52-154102-2 ; Pages 42-43
  6. ^ Wilson: All the King's Ladies , pp. 170-171.
personal data
SURNAME Marshall, Rebecca
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English actress
DATE OF BIRTH before 1663
DATE OF DEATH after 1677